Buying a Laptop

[BitterDodgerFan]

4gigs? considering 32bit vista (which is what majority of users have) can only recognize upto 3gb, you don't need 4gb to run it smoothly.

to run HD, you don't need a crazy computer. modern dual and quad core CPUs are powerful enough to decode HD without a fancy video card. in fact, that's what i am doing. i have a quad core but a onboard video (my nvidia 8800gt got fried) and it runs HD fine. if you have a fancy graphics card, sure it will be nice and all and take the load off the CPU, but if you have onboard video, it will off load to the CPU.

That's not streaming though, right?

that would be just playing on the computer monitor but streaming as you call it or what i think you mean is to video output to a TV doesn't really require additional fancy hardware assuming your notebook will have some sort of video out port.

[acsguitar]

4gigs? considering 32bit vista (which is what majority of users have) can only recognize upto 3gb, you don't need 4gb to run it smoothly.

to run HD, you don't need a crazy computer. modern dual and quad core CPUs are powerful enough to decode HD without a fancy video card. in fact, that's what i am doing. i have a quad core but a onboard video (my nvidia 8800gt got fried) and it runs HD fine. if you have a fancy graphics card, sure it will be nice and all and take the load off the CPU, but if you have onboard video, it will off load to the CPU.

That's not streaming though, right?

that would be just playing on the computer monitor but streaming as you call it or what i think you mean is to video output to a TV doesn't really require additional fancy hardware assuming your notebook will have some sort of video out port.

Yea you don't/can't/shouldn't use 4 GB on a 32 bit system. It's pretty much a waste

[jfg]

I suppose the majority of TV's will be ip based in a couple of years anyway so buying a cheap laptop and saving money for one of those wouldn't be a bad idea. It's a tough time to be making a computer decision.

[sox 06]

Thanks for all of the advice and links

I was ready to spend a little less, but then my parents told me not to skimp on this laptop. I also spoke to a guy that I work with about laptops and he told me that he bought an older version of the HP that I was looking at and he said that he loves it. So, I ended up getting the HP Pavilion. I love it so far and I know its probably a bit more than I needed, but I am going to school for computer science so I should have a pretty good laptop right?

[acsguitar]

Thanks for all of the advice and links

I was ready to spend a little less, but then my parents told me not to skimp on this laptop. I also spoke to a guy that I work with about laptops and he told me that he bought an older version of the HP that I was looking at and he said that he loves it. So, I ended up getting the HP Pavilion. I love it so far and I know its probably a bit more than I needed, but I am going to school for computer science so I should have a pretty good laptop right?

Paying 665 or whatever for that laptop isn't bad at all. I usually just recommend people stay under 1000 if they don't need to spend 1000. Good work!